“Winter Animals,” “Nothing To Do With Love” get English-language premieres

The Cherry Arts, a local nonprofit theater company founded in 2015, is awaiting the completion of its new building on Cherry Street. But before that happens, the group will present one last “itinerant” production at the Community School of Music and Arts next week.

Running April 25-29, “Loza Plays” will present the English-language premiere of two one-act plays by Argentine playwright and filmmaker Santiago Loza: “Winter Animals” starring Dean Robinson, Johnny Shea and Helen T. Clark in a father-son-roommate tale, and “Nothing To Do With Love” features Susannah Berryman in a solo turn as a small-town dressmaker remembering one of her greatest triumphs.

Loza is one of the leading contemporary playwrights of Latin America as well as a celebrated filmmaker, but this show marks the first time his theatrical writing will appear in the English language.

“It’s very ambitious in that it’s more on the international scene than we’ve done before,” said Samuel Buggeln, artist director of the Cherry Arts. “In the U.S., people talk about a theater pipeline, where plays start in New York City and then go out to the rest of the country. But what we really want to do is reverse the pipeline and send stuff from Ithaca out into the world, especially international stuff that isn’t being seen. A there’s no better place than Ithaca to be the first responders to brand-new international work.”

Buggeln became familiar with Loza’s work when he spent nine months in Argentina while his partner was on sabbatical there.

“The whole genesis of the Cherry came from that time,” he said. “I knew Buenos Aires was one of the five biggest theater towns anywhere, so I saw about five shows a week and my Spanish got much better. A lot of the plays were good in Argentina but wouldn’t be good in America because lots of different cultural expectations. But there were a small handful of writers whose work I thought, ‘This is not only a great play here, but would also be really legible in the U.S.’ They’re not ordinary plays here — they definitely fall outside of the box, but not so far that we don’t get it.”

Susannah Berryman stars in the Cherry Arts production of “Nothing To With Love.”(Photo: Provided)

Buggeln’s Spanish tutor, Ariel Gurevitch, also happened to be a playwright; he introduced him to Loza’s work and later co-translated “Winter Animals” with Buggeln. “Nothing To Do With Love” was co-translated by Alejandro Tantanian, artistic director of that city’s Teatro Cervantes.

Buggeln said it’s both challenging and exciting to translate international works: “As a director, I’ve always thought of myself as a person who couldn’t write because I didn’t have any ideas, plus I always had good playwrights.

“For me, it’s been really exciting to find out that this is a way I could write for the stage; I can read something and can get what play it would be in English. That’s exciting, but when you get it into the mouths of actors, that’s challenging. and that’s been a great part of the process. These great actors provide a lot of insight on how to make a moment truer or sharper.”

Buggeln is directing “Winter Animals,” while Norm Johnson is helming “Nothing to Do With Love.”

“Norm and Susannah are old friends and have wanted to work together for a long time,” he said. “It’s the first time I’ve hired another director for the Cherry, and I love seeing what Norm is bringing to something I co-translated.”

Buggeln work with set designer Daniel Zimmerman to transform the CSMA’s vast 3rd Martha Hamblin Hall. “We’re not making into conventional theater, we’re making it into two installations using the space really differently both times,” he said. “The CSMA is so big and unusual, I was sort of stumped by it, but now it’s sort of magical thanks to Daniel, who I worked with on many shows in New York City.”

The Cherry Arts offers a “self-determined pricing” ticketing policy, so tickets to “Loza Plays” start at $8, with a suggested price of $20 for the gainfully employed, and $40 suggested to support the artists.